Researching Italian Church Records

[rp76226]

Italian church records go back centuries further than Italian Civil Records. While a lot of work has been done and is being done on Italian civil records, there seems to be no large organized effort to catalog and present Italian church records. The Mormon website can't do it because they want to baptize into the Mormon faith every person they find (they believe that baptism works even after death) and therefore the Catholic Church won't cooperate with them. There's so much more ancestry to be found in church records if only they were accessible. Antenati is the most logical organization to pursue this.

[MarcuccioV]

It would be nice, especially if no civil records are available. It would be a tremendous undertaking, especially considering there are often multiple parishes per commune, not to mention all the non-Catholic churches (Eastern Orthodox, etc).

I'm not sure based on recent actions that Antenati is properly prepared for such a pursuit. But there is always hope...

[Italysearcher]

Italianparishrecords.org is trying to do just this.

I doubt the Italian Government will get cooperation from the Vatican for this kind of project.